


the perfect places of sleep.

by lumoshyperion



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-18 23:21:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19344748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lumoshyperion/pseuds/lumoshyperion
Summary: Two times Astoria shielded her son from his nightmares, and one time Draco shared his.





	the perfect places of sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Was going to submit this for drastoria fest, as it's more or less a sequel to "we were both born today", but a) I didn't finish it on time and b) albus popped up (as he does) and suddenly it was less about drastoria and more about scorpius. Title is from "you are tired (I think)" by e. e. cummings.

i.

From the look of the deep black night sky outside their window, it must have been fairly late when Draco woke to a noise out in the hallway. He sat up and reached for his wand, listening for another sound. It had been a relatively quiet, peaceful evening. But some time earlier on in the night, the fire must have gone out. He could already feel Astoria reaching out for him, searching for the warmth of his embrace she was enclosed in just moments ago. When the door creaked open - he cast a Lumos charm and stared, wildly, at the empty hallway.

Astoria groaned, shielding her eyes from the light of the wand. “What is it?”

“I had a bad dweam,” came a voice from the foot of their bed. It was Scorpius - his glistening eyes and tuft of silvery hair just peeking over the edge of the duvet.

Astoria smiled, patting the space next to her and watching as their son pattered around the bed and clambered under the sheets. She tucked him in and wrapped her arms around him, his head resting neatly under her chin.

Draco shifted next to her and she looked up at him. He raised an eyebrow and sniffed, glancing down at the bundle of Scorpius - who was already going back to sleep. With a smirk, she mouthed, “jealous?”

Her husband scoffed. But he was smiling as he Noxed his wand and put it back down on the bedside table.

Fumbling in the dark - Astoria reached for Draco. She found him, pulling him in for a kiss. He was taken by surprise, but returned the kiss with so much fervour that they almost woke Scorpius - who whined underneath the blankets. Astoria gave a quiet laugh, her lips still pressed against his. And then she pulled away.

With a contented sigh, Draco shuffled across the bed and wrapped his arms around both his wife and son. He had considered getting up to light the fire, but found there was more than enough warmth to be had in his little family. He could have lived in that moment forever.

ii.

Astoria hadn’t slept at all. There had been a dull ache developing in her shoulders and neck throughout the evening, which had peaked some time after midnight. She had taken a dose of her pain relief potion with dinner; but it only numbed the pain, it never made it go away. Some days were just worse than others. That was the reality of the blood curse.

With a sigh, she sat up in bed and glanced over at her sleeping husband. He always told her to wake him when she couldn’t sleep. But she didn’t want to disturb him, so she stood up and made her way out into the hall, a hand massaging the back of her neck as she breathed in and out. There were exercises she could try which often helped with the pain, but they were easier with someone else and she didn’t want to wake anyone. It was the night before the first day of term and the household had been abuzz with preparations. Scorpius had been glowing all week with barely contained excitement for the year ahead.

Smiling at the thought of him, she glanced down the hallway at his bedroom and found that his light was still on. Curious, she walked over and pushed the door open, finding her son sitting on his bed, surrounded by books, his nose in a rather large leather bound tome.

“You’ll need glasses soon if you keep reading like that,” she said from the doorway, giving him a fright. “Sorry. What are you doing up?”

Scorpius set his book aside and brought his knees up to his chin. “I couldn’t sleep.”

Astoria smiled, knowingly, as she made her way over to the bed and sat down - careful not to disturb his books, which were stacked in neat piles at his feet. “Nervous about tomorrow?”

“Not really? I mean - I’ve missed Albus so much and I can’t wait to get started on our schoolwork, I know it’s much more difficult this year, but - I just-” He paused, chewing on the edge of his collar and stealing nervous glances at his mother. “It doesn’t matter.”

“No, Scorpius, what is it? You can tell me.” Scorpius opened his mouth to speak, but then shook his head and started stacking the books on his bedside table. “Is it the other students? They’re still being unkind?”

“No… I mean, yes, but - I don’t mind as much anymore. Especially when I’m with Albus,” he explained, tapping his chin on his knees and staring off into space. “It’s not any of that, it’s just - I’m a little - scared.”

“Of what?”

“Leaving you,” he blurted out, and then it was if the floodgates had been opened. “If something happens, I don’t - what if I’m at school, or… what if I can’t come visit as much, or - I don’t know what I’d do if-”

Astoria’s heart shattered. “Oh, darling.” She reached out for him, but Scorpius was too busy wiping his face with his sleeves to notice. When he stopped and looked back up at her, his eyes were red. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t know how,” he replied, wringing his hands. “And - I didn’t want to bother you. I know you haven’t been doing well this week. You try to hide it, but I can tell.”

Astoria looked away and instinctively brought a hand up to the back of her neck, which was still bothering her. She hated how much the curse disrupted their lives. She hid as much as she could, especially from Scorpius, but it was useless. He could be so perceptive sometimes.

Suddenly, she felt the bed shift as Scorpius moved to sit behind her. Before she could speak, his hands were on her shoulders - his thumbs massaging her aching muscles in round, slow motions.

It was exactly what she needed and Astoria leaned back, closing her eyes with a grateful sigh. “How do you know how to do that?”

“I’ve seen you with dad, sometimes. In the morning.”

“I never saw you,” she replied, although even as she said it aloud she knew why she never noticed him. Whenever she woke in the middle of an intense flare up, she was barely lucid. She never even registered that Draco was there with her, helping her through the pain - at least not until she came out of it, what felt like hours later, and found herself in his arms. She reached up and grabbed her son’s hand, turning to look at him. “Thank you.”

“Do you want me to go wake dad up?”

“No, no, it’s alright. I feel better now.” She watched as he shuffled back to the head of the bed and crossed his legs. He’d grown so much over the Summer. She’d noticed, of course. She noticed everything, but there were still some things that she missed. And he had never been more grown up to her than he was in this moment. She reached over and brushed a hand through his hair, smiling. “I love you, Scorpius. So much.”

His face crumpled and Astoria pulled him into her arms, pressing kisses in his hair and stroking his back as he buried himself in her flannel pajamas. There was so much she wanted to say, but couldn’t. _Please don’t let me get in the way of your happiness_ , was what she wanted to tell him. But instead she just held him, for as long as she could, and then longer still - until he was fast asleep.

iii.

Draco never grew accustomed to waking alone. Reaching out across the empty space in the bed and brushing his fingertips across the cold bed sheets as rising panic filled his chest, only to be replaced with a remembrance which shocked him out of sleep and into the reality of wakefulness.

With a sigh, he sat up in bed and dragged a hand over his face. It was early July and one of the warmest Summers on record. There was little respite to be had in cooling charms and cold showers, although the evenings - when Draco threw open the windows of the manor - offered some relief in the form of a gentle breeze drifting through the house.

Whatever displeasure he had in the weather was not reflected in his son. Scorpius had only been home for a few weeks and had spent almost every minute of that time outdoors, usually with Albus. It seemed they had a lot to talk about in the wake of their misadventure the previous Halloween, as they spent day after day wandering the grounds and lying in the sunshine, their heads bent in deep discussion. They returned to the manor in the late afternoon, Scorpius’s nose and shoulders pink from the sun - to which Albus seemed immune. Something to speak for the Potter gene, Draco supposed.

He was about to fall back into bed, when he heard it. Sitting up against the headboard, he waited and listened to the silence of the house. But then there it was again. And he couldn’t wait and listen for another second, as he stumbled out of bed and barely had the foresight to grab his wand before he made his way out of his room and down the hall.

Quietly, he pushed open the door to Scorpius’s room and peered inside. By the light of his wand he found a heartbreaking, all too familiar sight. His son, tossing and turning in bed, his legs tangled in the sheets as he sobbed into his pillow. As Draco approached him, his wand lighting the large, messy room, he saw that he was clawing at the skin of his arm. “No, no. Please, no, please - get it off, please - no, no,” Scorpius moaned.

Leaning forward, he gently grabbed his son by the shoulder. “It’s just a dream,” he soothed. “Scorpius, wake up - it’s just a dream.”

“It won’t come off, it won’t - please, you can’t!” And he was almost screaming now, shaking Draco’s hand off his shoulder as he hugged his arm to his chest. “I’m not - I’m not like you, I’m not supposed to be here. Please, it hurts, it hurts, please, no -”

Draco set his wand down on the bedside table and held Scorpius down, shouting his name, “Scorpius! Scorpius, it’s not real! Wake up, it’s just a dream.”

He finally woke with a gasp of fright and stared, wild eyed, up at his father. “D- Dad?”

Draco let out a sigh of relief. “I’m here. It’s alright.You’re at home, you’re safe.”

“Oh.” Scorpius pulled away, curling up into himself as he cradled his arm to his chest. “I’m sorry for waking you.”

“You know I don’t mind,” Draco replied with a small smile, sitting down on the bed. “What you and Albus went through, it’s - understandable.”

Scorpius nodded. Upon returning from time on Halloween the year before, he had explained everything that had happened. But they hadn’t spoken about it since.

“Is this about Godric’s Hollow?” He asked, thinking back on nights when he had bolted awake to the sound of his son screaming for his mother as visions of Voldemort flashed through his mind. It was Lily and James who died that night, but the group huddled together underneath a street light had all heard someone different in their last pleas for mercy that would never come.

“No,” Scorpius replied, his voice barely above a whisper. “Something else.”

Draco nodded and then paused, considering the space between them in silence. “We don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want to.”

“No, it’s - I’ve been meaning to tell you,” Scorpius explained, blinking up at him through those long eyelashes. His mother’s. “I didn’t know how, but…”

And Draco suddenly noticed that Scorpius had been snatching glimpses of his left forearm ever since he woke up. He subconsciously turned it to his side, out of sight, and waited for his son to continue.

“In the dark reality one of the students noticed that I didn’t have…” He stopped, looking down at his arm as he smoothed a hand over it in slow, rhythmic motions. “I was getting changed in the dorm room and -”

Then it hit Draco like a stunning spell, square in the chest. He could barely get the words out as he asked, through gritted teeth, “Did they tell anyone?”

Scorpius grimaced. “The headmistress. She called me up to her office and told me I was going to see you, and - I couldn’t go until… until I was ‘complete’.”

“Is it - is it still there?”

~~

_“Albus?” Scorpius asked, from across the dorm room as he watched his friend prepare for bed. “Can you do something for me?”_

_Albus sat down on his own bed and gave him a look of curiousity. “Of course. What is it?”_

_Scorpius presented his arm, currently swaddled in pajamas and his green bathrobe. “Can you look at my arm?”_

_“What?” Albus scoffed. “What do you mean, look at your arm? I’m looking at it now. Is that a new robe? It’s very nice.”_

_“I’m being serious. Please. Just - look at it,” he pleaded, pulling up the sleeve of his robe without looking._

_Albus frowned, and opened his mouth to protest, but seemed to have thought better of it as he got up and crossed the room - sitting down next to his friend. Scorpius felt him gently pull back the sleeve of his pajamas, holding him by the wrist as he examined his arm._

_“Well?” He asked, through gritted teeth - his head tilted towards the window of the dormitory in an effort to avoid looking at the bare skin he had been dreading for days. “Anything?”_

_“I don’t know what exactly I’m looking for,” Albus replied. He brushed a hand across the smooth surface of the arm, leaving goosebumps in his wake. “There’s nothing here.”_

_Scorpius finally glanced down at his left arm. But he was right, there was nothing there. He let out a sigh of relief as the tension in his shoulders dissipated._

_“What’s going on?”_

_He looked back at Albus, who was gazing up at him with deep concern. He was still holding onto his wrist, his other hand placed on the bare skin of his forearm. It made Scorpius shiver. “I just wanted to check something.”_

_“Check what? What aren’t you telling me, Scorpius?”_

_He knew he couldn’t keep it from Albus much longer. But he didn’t want to tell him. There was nothing he dreaded more than that expression of guilt and horror he’d worn as Scorpius had explained what happened in the dark reality. “It was just - something that happened when we time travelled the second time. When I was in the other reality. But it’s gone now, it’s fine. I’m fine.”_

_“You didn’t mention this before. Did someone hurt you? Was it one of the other students?” Here he paused and glanced over at the other beds, spread out across the room. But then he went suddenly still and Scorpius didn’t have to look at him to see the realization dawn on his face. “Oh.”_

_“I knew it was gone - I couldn’t feel it anymore when I came out of the lake,” he hurriedly explained, wanting nothing more than to move on and never speak of the Dark Mark again. “But I was scared. I was scared it was still there. So I haven’t looked at my arm ever since we got back. Showering has been, uhh, rather difficult.”_

_Albus gave a short laugh, but it didn’t feel genuine or Albus-y at all. “I wish you’d told me.”_

_“I’m sorry. There was - a lot going on. I didn’t think this was important, but-” he stopped, his words muffled by Albus’s shoulder as he pulled him into a hug. “Oh. Hello.” He smiled, wrapping his arms around his best friend and burying his face in his shoulder. “I could get used to this, you know?”_

__~~_ _

Quietly, softly - he brushed the bare skin of his son’s arm. There were raised lines and angry red marks where he had scratched it raw in his sleep. Some were fresh, some seemed old. He looked up as Scorpius pulled his arm away. “I wish - I wish you’d told me sooner,” he whispered. “You know that I-”

Scorpius bit his lip, his eyes glistening with tears. “I know.”

Leaning forward on his knees, Draco rubbed a hand over his eyes. Everything his son had told him about the other reality had ripped through his very core. It was too familiar. He had dreamed about it himself in the weeks and months following the last wizarding war. It was what could have been - what almost was - and he felt a responsibility and guilt that never seemed to go away, however much he told himself he was just a boy, trying to protect his family.

Draco glanced over at the boy in the bed, the spitting image of him in his youth. Except there was something softer about him. Something entirely Astoria that made him ache in the strangest, most unexpected moments. He hadn’t noticed that Scorpius was staring right back at him until he spoke three words that pulled him out of his reverie, “Did it hurt?”

“Yes,” he answered, simply. “Immensely.”

“I didn’t - have time to think about it. Once it was done, I was at the ministry, and then there you were,” Scorpius explained in low, careful tones, as if these were secrets he had held close to his heart for months. “I thought for a minute that everything was going to be okay.”

Draco frowned, deeply - miserably. When Scorpius told him about his encounter at the ministry in the other reality, he knew there was something he couldn’t speak about - something his counterpart had done. The mere thought of it made him ill, to this day. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t there for you. I should have known something was wrong, I should have helped -”

Scorpius shook his head and cut him off, “But you did. I mean - the other you did. I was so scared and then, I saw you and - the way you talked about mum, it - gave me courage.”

Draco closed his eyes and smiled, in spite of himself. “You’re so like her. You have no idea how much.” Looking up, he watched as Scorpius shrugged his shoulders and looked away. His lower lip was trembling. “Do you want me to stay?” He asked. Scorpius nodded, so he stood and made for the chair pushed up against the wall, but a hand stopped him. Draco glanced back down at his son, who was staring at his left arm again. He had unconsciously covered it from view as he stood and turned.

After a moment of quiet consideration, he pulled his hand away and exposed his inner arm, waiting for a reaction from the boy sitting on the bed before him. But there was none. Draco looked down and watched as Scorpius touched the Dark Mark, an indecipherable expression on his face. And then he wrapped his arms around his father’s stomach and buried his face in his chest.

Draco was immediately reminded of Astoria, and her reaction upon first seeing the mark - early in their courtship. To respond to such a thing with only warmth and love, it was something he never asked for or expected, and yet there it was. He stroked his son’s back and pressed a kiss in his soft, messy hair.

“You should get some rest,” he insisted, gently extracting him from his arms and turning to move the chair to the side of the bed before taking a seat.

Scorpius lay down and pulled the thin green sheets over his chest. Outside, the wind was picking up and casting shadows across the room with the tree branches and long black gates of the manor. It wasn’t long before Scorpius dozed off and Draco, unable to pull himself away from his sleeping son, settled into his seat and closed his eyes.

~~

He woke hours later to sunshine pouring in through the large windows and a familiar sight in the bed before him. Astoria was lying down on top of the blankets, her black heels discarded at her feet. He watched in silence as she carded her fingers through their sons hair. “Did he have another nightmare?” She asked, without looking away from Scorpius’s peaceful face.

“A new one, yes. About the other reality. The reality where Voldemort lived.” That caught Astoria’s attention and she looked up, frowning. “Can I tell you later?”

She watched him for a moment, but decided not to pursue it further, and patted the space on the bed in front of Scorpius. Draco quietly stood up from his seat and sat on the bed, staring down at their sleeping son. Their earlier conversation was playing on his mind. Scorpius knew the man he found in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement wasn’t him. But there was a part of Draco that was familiar with this man. He saw himself in him, however much he tried not to - however far he grew from that part of his life.

“Do you think he knows? How much I-”

Astoria cut him off before he could finish, looking up at him with a stern glance. “He knows.”

And Draco, suitably scolded, decided to change the subject. “How was Berlin?”

“They won’t listen. They refuse to believe that someone could live with a blood curse, never mind the fact that I’m living proof that it is possible.” She sighed, brushing a hand over her hair and leaning against the pillow. “It’s so frustrating.”

“We’ll get there. You have to be patient.”

“I know," said Astoria, stroking her thumb across their son’s forehead. “Do you remember when he had nightmares as a child? He used to fit in the crook of my arm. The palm of my hands. He’s grown so much.”

“I remember,” Draco whispered back, staring down at Scorpius’s sleeping face. “He’ll be too old for this sort of thing before long.”

“You sound unhappy about that.”

“I accept it, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it,” he replied. The edge in his voice almost woke Scorpius, who shifted between them before making a soft, contented noise and going back to sleep.

“Then we’d better make the most of this while it lasts.”


End file.
